Sexual harassment

FREE WEBINAR (ZOOM)

Tuesday, 25 June 2024
11.00am to 12.00pm (AEST)

Move the needle on this widespread issue

Time and again, research has highlighted the severe impacts of sexual harassment on the physical and psychological wellbeing of employees.

In one of our recent articles, we noted that even witnessing sexually suggestive conduct can be deemed harassment under Fair Work guidelines.

A 2020 AHRC inquiry, Respect@Work, found one in three workers experienced harassment, with 18% feeling disempowered to report it.

Concerning statistics, as mentioned above, lead to the legislative developments, like the 'positive duty guidelines' to encourage leaders to address sexual harassment and other forms of harmful conduct in a proactive rather than passive approach.

Moreover, the AHRC also came forward with various resources such as 'The Guiding Principles' and campaigns like ‘speaking from experience' to help organisations address this issue and handle it through appropriate communication channels.

In this webinar, our experts will delve into the nature of sexual harassment as a psychosocial hazard, and provide practical tips to meet legal obligations and effectively manage this risk.

Cracking a pervasive workplace problem

Along with providing suitable interventions for sexual harassment, our fourth webinar will aim to help employers recognise and address other toxic workplace behaviours such as bullying, violence, aggression, discrimination, and one-off incidents and patterns of coercive control.

Our experts will discuss and provide recommendations on how leaders can spot and act on harmful behaviours, set up suitable reporting avenues to encourage employees to 'speak up' in the light of inappropriate behaviours as well enforce formal and informal resolution options.

While our guest speaker will delve into the problem points and intervention tools, our host - Stephen Bell - will highlight the thread that connects the core elements of iHR Australia’s flagship leadership training program, focusing on anti-discrimination, bullying, harassment, including sexual harassment to the Safe Work Australia’s guidelines.

'Even scenarios where a person is exposed to or witnesses sexually suggestive conduct such as overhearing inappropriate conversations between co-workers can be deemed as sexual harassment in the workplace, according to Fair Work’, says Paula Bruce, Senior Workplace Relations Adviser.

What we will cover

Join Stephen Bell, in the fourth instalment of our webinar series as he engages with Paula Bruce in yet another thought-provoking discussion.

Together, they will explore pragmatic, evidence-backed strategies to help executives and stakeholders meet their positive duty obligations and improve an employees' physical and psychological wellbeing.

Who is this for

  • Executives 

  • HR professionals

  • Senior managers

What to expect

Deep dive into the impacts of sex and gender-based harassment

  • definition of sexual and gender-based harassment

  • the rights and responsibilities of everyone involved in a workplace allegation about harassment

  • behaviours, including including coercion control extending to sexual harassment

  • how it affects an employee’s productivity, engagement, performance, and wellbeing

  • what interventions and strategies help improve organisation’s address sex and gender-based harassment

  • ways to build confidence and improve staff reporting levels

  • what are robust complaints handling processes to bring a change in the culture

Meet our experts

Stephen Bell, Managing Director

Stephen’s HR proposition is that the quality of a workplace culture is paramount in determining the success of employee engagement strategies.

In hosting this webinar, Stephen will draw upon his years' of experience in providing advice to organisations on the power of workplace cultures and its relationship to employee performance, wellbeing, engagement, and risk mitigation. 

Dr Verena Marshall, Senior Workplace Relations Adviser

Verena will focus on guiding employers, HR and executives in understanding and recognising the impacts of sexual harassment as well as provide formal and informal resolution options to help address sexual harassment in an efficient yet empathetic, fair, and non-discriminatory manner.

She will tap into her years of experience, running investigations around sexual harassment to further expand on the rights and responsibilities of parties involved in a workplace allegation about harassment.

How to watch

Click on the link below to watch our webinar